After
by Pyrus Japonica
Summary: spoilers for...well pretty much the whole series Three years after the end of the war, Marco's life is about to change yet again when Jake shows up. But right now by the pool outside his mansion, he has something else he needs to deal with.


Disclaimer/Spoiler Warning:  Oh come on guys, if I had written the Animorphs, Jake would have died after rescuing Tom, Ax would become a human _nothlit__ to comfort/date Cassie and Rachael would have to split her time between Tobias and Marco.  If you haven't finished the series, go do that first and then come back and read this, or it won't make sense, trust me._

After

By Pyrus Japonica

            My name is Marco.

            Yeah, that's right.  _The Marco.  Hero of Earth.  Co-star of my own TV show.  Author of two best-selling books.  Best looking Animorph of the bunch._

            I'm a millionaire, you know.  If things keep going the way they are I'll probably end up a gazillionaire or something, not to brag.  And yeah, I've got the cars, the mansion, fame out the wazoo, everything I've ever wanted.

            I've got a girlfriend now too.  Like I've said before, not a genius type.  But who needs brains when you've got huge…um…personality?

            Her name's Britney.  No, not Spears.  I tend to stay away from blondes.  Well, except for Carla and Cleo, but I mean, come on, they were twins.  _Identical twins.  Who can resist that?_

            She is about a foot taller than me though.  Maybe that's the attraction.

            The reason for all these wonderful things coming my way?  Three years ago, me and a bunch of my friends saved the world.  The Animorphs.  Six of us against an entire alien nation.  Three alien nations if you counted the Taxxons and Hork-Bajir.  And somehow, mostly due to Jake, we won.  Five of us even survived.

            But I don't think about that much.  It's all over now, and I have different concerns.  Like whether I should invest in one of the many Andalite-Human crossover businesses cropping up or just buy a whole bunch of Marco action figures.  I'm barely twenty, I have my whole life to live and I can't spend it thinking about that last battle, that horrible, awful night on the Yeerk Pool ship.  Not the Animorph recruits who had died.  Not the human military forces that were shot down.  Not the free Hork-Bajir who were slaughtered to give us more time.  Not Rachael.

            I never think about that.

            One of the first questions that was ever asked of me on public television, after all the normal morphing questions were answered, was this:  How did you deal with the death of a fellow Animorph?  And I think I spouted off something about it being impossible to kill Rachael and hoped no one I knew was watching while I cracked jokes.  Not that they would have been surprised if they had.

            I stretched lazily on a lounge chair beside my pool.  The outdoor one, not the indoor.  It was a beautiful day and I didn't want to waste it.

            Truthfully?  I didn't deal with Rachael's death.  I couldn't.  I mean, we'd been fighting side by side for three years when it happened.  I can't count the number of times one of us ended up carrying the other out of some bloodbath.  She steadied me when I went crazy trying to save my family.  I steadied her when she was crazy most of the time.  We were the ones who did what needed to be done, and left the moralizing to Cassie or Jake.  If I had been the one to die she would have gotten over it long ago.

            Not that I hadn't.

            Maybe I had dealt with it, sort of.  I remember when we first landed in DC, I just lapped up the attention, telling story after story to ease the pressure off Jake, take the burden from Cassie, distract from Ax.  I'm Hollywood personified.  I gave the press what they wanted…when they were finished with Jake and Ax, anyway.  I remember watching out of the corner of my eye as Tobias left, just lifted his wings and flew off.  He didn't seem to hear the reporters or care, he just wanted to be alone.  To mourn Rachael.  And I just stood there making jokes.

            So I'm not Tobias.  I'm not some bird-boy who can just fly away and live in a meadow somewhere for the rest of his life.  And anyway I wasn't in love with her.  And I have responsibilities.  I have a public.  So I worked the crowd until the whole world knew our story.  Anyone with a TV in their house knew what had gone down that day.

            But there were no TVs back at the camp.

            Cassie broke the news to Rachael's mom and sisters.  It was Jake's job really, as the leader, but we cut him some slack, Cassie and I.  He had just caused the death of his cousin and his brother, not to mention hundreds of other lives, and on top of that had lied to and betrayed pretty much everyone he knew.  All in one day, all to win.  It was the kind of thing I might have done, or Rachael herself.  We could have dealt with it.  Jake couldn't.  So Cassie told them.  I think that's what Rachael would have wanted anyway.

            Call me a coward, but I didn't want to be anywhere near the area when she told them.  I've seen Rachael's mom get mad, and I didn't think this would be the kind of thing to put her in a sunny mood.  Jake either had the same idea or just wanted to be alone, so I was left to myself in the camp.  It was weird, all around me there were humans and Hork-Bajir, crying or wailing or doing whatever it was that sad Hork-Bajir do.  No one paid any attention to me.  My parents had been relieved to see me of course, but then they had to rush off and help the injured, figure out who was missing and all the things that happen after a war is over.  I should probably have gone to help them, but again I just stood there.  Let it all wash over me.  Didn't cry.

            Why am I thinking all this on a beautiful day when I have the world at my command and a thousand babes at my beck and call?  Well I suppose it doesn't help that the anniversary of the Last Battle is next week.  They're going to do a big celebration, complete with one of those Thanksgiving-type parades.  A parade.  Rachael would have rolled her eyes.  I'm supposed to ride on a float shaped like a gorilla.  Hopefully with loads of supermodels in tight little monkey suits.  My agent is working out the details.

            I got up from the chair, stuck my hand in my pockets, walked over to the pool.  The real reason I'm thinking all this is that I'm bored.  Bored silly.  I mean, sure I could have anything in the world that I wanted.  We all could.  But what I wanted had nothing to do with this world at all.  I stared into the crystal clear water.

            She hadn't meant for it to happen, of course.  Rachael didn't want to die, she always wanted to live, to fight.  For her it was the same thing.  But I remember while I was standing there in the camp, I was thinking, maybe it was for the best.  What would Rachael have done after the war?  Yeah, she'd have Tobias, she'd have all of us but what would she _do?  Grow up and become a world-famous lawyer?  Not the same as tearing out the throat of a Controller in grizzly morph.  I had almost made my peace with it, right there in the camp.  Then I looked up and saw her._

            Rachael.  It wasn't her.  Part of me screamed that she was dead, that this was Elena, the blind girl in morph so she could see what was going on.  But the other part of me wanted to run wildly up to Rachael, my girl _Rachael and tell her that I knew it had all been a trick, some crazy ruse to throw off the Yeerks, that she was back and everything would be ok now._

            I'm not Tobias.  I didn't want to spout bird-brained sonnets or hold her and never let go.  Well, not in the same sense anyway.  I didn't want to tell her I loved her.

            But I think, if she had really been there, she would have known anyway.

            _And I don't want to kill myself now, I thought looking down at the water again.  I leaned over to look really closely at it, swirling gently from my custom-made jets.  I had a good life, I should go on living it.  Just go on, day after day, and what did it matter that the only girl I actually gave a damn about was dead?  There were plenty of girls.  She never cared about me anyway, we were friends, that's all--I was just shaken up and emotional because of the anniversary.  That's all it was.  Boy she would laugh at me if she saw how messed up I was getting over a stupid day.  If she were here—_

            There was a splash, and I jerked upward.  I hadn't realized I was leaning over so far.  A glance down told me that my keys had fallen from my pocket and were now settling on the bottom of the pool.  Great.  I didn't trust myself in that water, not after what had just happened.  Maybe I should morph dolphin.  Maybe I should stay a dolphin for two hours, just swim off and not have to cover with jokes anymore, because nothing in this world is carefree like a dolphin.

            As I was thinking this, the water shimmered slightly, in just the wrong way for water to shimmer.  I narrowed my eyes and wondered if I should morph something strong, but then I started to see a picture in the water.  It was me and…and her.  We were talking and laughing, and holding hands like we never had.  I saw us at the movies, seeing some stupid flick that we were both making fun of.  I saw us eating at a fast-food place, saw us get into a food fight over the last few French fries.  Things that had never happened.  Never.

            I turned away.  The Elimist.  Had to be.  Another time-line?  Maybe one where the war had never taken place?  Why he'd take time out to show me something that never could have been was beyond me, but the guy never was big on explaining his reasons.  I couldn't say thank you, so I just nodded.  When I looked back, the images were gone.

            Rachael was gone too.  But if she had been here, she wouldn't have been moping around pretending to be some millionaire playboy…girl.  She'd fight.  She'd do something.

            I had to do something.  First, I had to get my keys.  I started to morph lobster.  That's right, lobster.  I needed something that could walk on down there and pick up the keys, and I hadn't done this morph in a long time.  _Besides, I wanted a shell, I thought as I heard the doorbell ring._

            A hard shell.

A/N:  Ever read a character who you just _knew?  Well you know, Tobias interested me especially in the first part of the series, and Marco is who I act like most of the time.  But I always understood Rachael.  When I finished the series I just bawled for hours and hours.  So, this one's for you Rach, my favorite Animorph.  You were brave.  You were strong.  You were good.  You mattered.  ~PJ_


End file.
